DIY cabs, anyone use them?

[topheteatwo]

I've recently acquired a 2x15 cab from a friend, he built it from scratch and sold me it for £80, so I thought why not!

I'm yet to have a proper blast on it, but from what I can gather, it sounds amazing, even for it being made on the cheap.

How do you guys feel about DIY cabs? Anyone got them and like them or hate them?

[JPJ]

I've built a few, some more successful than others. Obey the basic laws of physics and you can get a really nice cab for not very much money with a much better driver than anything stock.

Interestingly, you can disobey the basic laws of physics and still get a cab that works well, just ask Jorge Schroeder :-)

[bertbass]

DIY is the way to go.

[VTypeV4]

These will be going into a DIY cab when they're back from re-cone.. Not sure if to go for direct radiating or horn plus HF component tho.

[URL=http://s778.photobucket.com/user/VTypeV4/media/GoodmansPair_zps4d0bdb00.jpg.html][IMG]http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy70/VTypeV4/GoodmansPair_zps4d0bdb00.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

I tried these for a bit but they were a bit too old fashioned. The one with the EV sounded better. Sold them on the bay a few weeks back.

[URL=http://s778.photobucket.com/user/VTypeV4/media/BeavisW2_zpsa0418bce.jpg.html][IMG]http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy70/VTypeV4/BeavisW2_zpsa0418bce.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[Phil Starr]

Building a cab for a speaker isn't really very high tech. If the box is well made and the right size and shape, and tuned properly if it is a ported design, then it is pretty much going to sound like a commercial cab. There are lots of designs out there you can copy too so you can do this without much technical knowledge.

Just like DIY repairs to your house some people are better at it than others though. No secret to this either, they just take more care, don't cut corners and get better the more they do.

Even designing cabs isn't difficult. It's roughly A level maths/physics sort of standard. You do need to work at it but most reasonably bright people will get on top of the basics in a year or two. You can get in at the bottom end by letting the computer do the number crunching but it helps to understand what the computer is doing for you.

The joy is that you can then apply your knowledge in so many ways, the perfect speaker doesn't exist at any price. They are all compromise designs and each compromise leads to a different sound. Not all the compromises are built commercially and there is a tendency for most of the manufacturers to do me too copies of the currently best selling designs.

I've been designing and building speakers since the 1970's and am still learning how little I know and how much more there is I want to try.

So go ahead and use DIY speakers, then get into building them yourself.